Tag Archives: India

Am I a computer scientist?

Posted by toalakan-web on November 3, 2010 2 comments

Today morning I went in for H1b stamping @ Chennai,India US consulate and the consular asked me Are u a computer scientist? I was quiet taken back,perplexed, short of answer and was wondering am I really a computer scientist because I can program.

After a while of my thought process; I totally had to deny it and say I’m an web application developer.

But I’m still wondering why was that question asked and what was going on in consular mind?

What would you have answered if the same question was asked to u?

Yep I’m in India on a long vacation.

What happens to the Doctorates?

Posted by toalakan-web on January 19, 2010 None comments

Well the news is out the Govt. of India is derecognizing 44 so called deemed universities in India due to lack of infrastructure facilities. Finally some one in the Education department recognized it and blew the whistle.

Although I didn’t study in any of these universities but I have visited some of them during my UG time and they weren’t gr8 even then so I’m gonna assume world didn’t become flat in last 5 years.

An example for the so called deemed university standard is when some universities awarded doctorates to some south indian actors just like a freebie (Google it).

So will these actors return the so call doctorates since these universities are no more universities?

I hope at least from now on people think twice before accepting any kind of doctorates just for the fun of it. I’m sure actors work hard as well but Please don’t mix academics and acting it doesn’t go well keep them separate.

Oscar looks good with A.R.Rahman than with Dr.A.P.J Abdul Kalam. Doesn’t it?

Irony series

Posted by toalakan-web on January 7, 2010 2 comments

Well I have always wanted a irony series with news that I have read or instances of my blog posts or anything  that contradicts each other and finally I’m starting it today.

I just want to point out the ironies nothing more than that and probably what I consider as Irony might not be the same for everyone.

Here are 2 slide shows from The Hindu(Chennai edition) online news paper

  1. Showing the newly beautified Marina beach done by the TN govt dated Dec 22 2009.
  2. Other one showing an Oil slick off Chennai dumped illegally by some ship off the coast dated Jan 6 2009.

We choose where we develop..

Posted by toalakan-web on November 25, 2009 2 comments

I was always under the impression that my country India was well developed culturally/socially and still developing economically.

Its not more than a year since 26/11/2008 Mumbai attacks happened and already my country(India) government has totally forgotten about it. The Prime minister of India is on whirl wind tour of USA during 26/11 this year and talking about the US – India relationship/climate change/nuclear deal which is good though but not @ the cost of missing out on paying respect to the fallen people on 26/11/2008.

May be

  1. they lost count of days to pay respect for the dead due to bomb blasts or
  2. have a better reason not known to everyone or
  3. didn’t care about it or
  4. technically the head of State is the president who is back there in India or
  5. practically the head of government is back in India :) . you know it

Just think about it would any of the developed countries head of states would have accepted the invitation to vist a foreign country that too on the first anniversary of a bomb blast itself?

Looks like we are trying too hard to develop economically and loosing the social part of it. I do know the PM is taking care of business as a professional weighing on the benefits but still it could have been handled in a better way. Just my thought..

Orkut No Donut for you..You can only add upto 250 favorites

Posted by toalakan-web on November 1, 2009 1 comments

Well who ever has used Orkut are aware the blog post title message which shows up when Orkut’s server are too busy to respond.

But this time no donuts for the whole Orkut team since they have set a hard limit of only 250 video links per profile which I hate personally hate and I’m not even a heavy user of Orkut. Here is the message I get when I add a video:

You can only add upto 250 favorites. Please remove some favorites in order to add new ones.

Looks like the Orkut network is going backwards instead of moving forward by implementing this kind of limit.  Considering India being one the major market for India this is a really bad move since Indian music industry is driven by the film industry with each having 5 songs minimum.  Don’t ask me why we need 5 songs in middle of a movie that’s a whole different story.

The reality is every orkut user bookmarks(embeds) all kind of youtube Indian film songs and this limit is going to make the users move to a different network. Wake up Orkut..

Here are some suggestions Orkut might do to improve the videos section which I personally used to like:

  1. Will it be too hard to create a playlist of all videos so we can listen to all of our favorite song.
  2. Has it even considering enabling search for the videos? It makes me wonder if this product is really from Google.
  3. If a youtube video has been disabled can it at least remove them by default instead of occupying my limited video library limit.

Considering all this downfalls of Orkut I do think may be I should join Facebook but I use these social networks to keep in touch with friends which Orkut does it ok for me.

May be I should depend more on my blog running on WordPress more where I control my app/data than letting them control me what I can and can’t do.

India Election result maps(2009) using ESRI Arcgis Flex API

Posted by toalakan-web on May 15, 2009 None comments

As usual I was lookig for a site that would show the Indian goverment election 2009 and I found out that electio commision has a site set up with the maps and stats online.

Here is the web site http://www.eciresults.nic.in/

The intersting part is they have a amazing interative map online using ESRI Arcgis Flex API and Arcgis server.

BTW ESRI is a company that I work for and now I can tell my friends when my friends ask about the place I work.

What next?

Posted by toalakan-web on April 26, 2009 1 comments

I was totally shocked and surprised by this sudden move of the current CM of Tamil Nadu M Karunanidhi to go on an indefinite fast unto death today to bring a ceasefire between srilanka and ltte.

That too after  J Jayalalithaa declared she would strive to form Eelam if she wins the 40 seats.

Sooner or later some one is going to promise we will rename Tamil Nadu to Eelam if we form the government in central. We still got solid 17 days before D day so any thing can happen people be on the watch out…

If I’m right these 2 parties AIDMK and DMK ruled Tamil Nadu for last 30 years ,were part of most governments in central and this war has been going for last 30 years.

What are the odds of this scenario happening and a solution not being found for last 30 years?

-Updated April 27,2009 1.00PM

What a surprise the fast didn’t even last more than 3 hours?

Is it cosidered a fast if I dont eat between breakfast and lunch?

How to avoid shoe being thrown during a press conference?

Posted by toalakan-web on April 8, 2009 1 comments

A question that pretty much every security agency protecting politicians all around world are worried about.

But its pretty simple especially for Indian police just change the press conference to a near by Hindu temple where shoes/slippers are not allowed inside and you are safe. :)

It would be better if they avoid the following temple mentioned here. Please send me the video link if you find one.

India Electoral Roll List search

Posted by toalakan-web on February 27, 2009 None comments

Yet again I was immersed  reading Wikipedia articles and I found a site that basically provides search interface to search the electoral roll list of India.

With elections on the way  this tool would avoid people from visiting the poll booth and return back with out voting since they aren’t in the list. It can be accessed from the below link.

http://search.eci.gov.in/

BTW I’m not sure if it really works because I kept encountering this login pop up which was annoying so I found the site for Tamil Nadu Election commison to check if I was there in the list.

One more you need to download their own tamil fonts and install. I know..

Bummer TN election has a search interface with Under construction message.  They do have another form which gives out tamil pdf for district – Constituency ward list for each of them.

Again bummer its in tamil so I can’t search in firefox or inside pdf which is a pain. So I had to literally read through all names in my ward and to every ones surprise I’m not listed :cry:

Waste of time. One good thing now I know my neighbours name and avoided a trip for my dad to check out the list.

Yamm Petra Inbam intha Vaiyakamum peratum..

Slumdog Millionaire is Slum

Posted by toalakan-web on February 2, 2009 2 comments

Yes the title says it. Its a really good desi masala movie packed in a nice little tamper proof plastic cup so that it can be cooked instantly in your DVD player.

As I was watching it I was wondering why it got nominated for Grammy and Oscars come on people haven’t you watched a better movie in your language.

I’m still wondering when was the last time Indians talked in Millions we follow the Indian Number system which is lakhs and crores.  The kids playing cricket reminds of  Chennai 28 which was a good movie.

Hell yeah this movie wasn’t  made for Indians it was made for the International community who are curious to know/learn about Mumbai after the November 26,2008 Mumbai attack.

Well there is one thing this movie has is A.R. Rahman but the Jai ho sounds similar to a track from Om Shanti Om and I’m not sure which song it is.

Its good marketing guys but don’t expect this to run this movie in India you know the result.

If only Kamal Hasan learns to market like these guys his Virumandi one of the best movies I have ever seen would have won a national award at least.

If you liked this movie then try watching yet another master piece called Pesum Padam/Pushpak from Kamal.

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